Serena offers to go as Dan's date, ruining the entire idea I just had, and Dan's impressed she managed to find her way all the way to Brooklyn to "apologize" for fucking up his life yet again, but before he can advise her on a Franco-appropriate outfit, she holds up one finger to take a call from Eric, relaying the details of Lily's Stephens Gambit. Still thinking she can somehow be simultaneously at Thorpapalooza and Wanna-Hipster Central, S tells Dan none of this, just dragging him in her wake down into perdition.

It is left to us to imagine Dan following after with her coat, snuffling barberishly to himself as he goes.

Oh, and Dan has his resume in a manila envelope and Serena also has her smoking affidavit in a manila envelope. I sure hope they don't get mixed up! So S gets rid of Lonelyboy the second they get to the Thorpe party so she can murder her mom without him getting judgy, and then she and B run into each other for a second so their storylines can glance a across each other with a chiming sound. Serena's looking for Chuck, Blair's still trying to track down Indra Nooyi, but S spots Eleanor coming down the stairs with shotgun in hand, so B scoots adorably.

Even Nate knows enough to know that S shouldn't be at a party with Lily right now, but she sidetracks him into whining about his dad yet again: Seems the Captain's gone walkies and never arrived at his job interview. (See? Dan, Blair and the Captain all had essential interviews today, but were wrestled to the ground by the tender noogies of Fate, resulting in that rare kind of gala party where the whole cast is there.)

Dan, just like S in the last paragraph with Blair, points out Nate's dad in the corner eating a "Chicago Superdog," which don't ask me, and goes zooming away. Their one skill besides being a detective/moral center is knowing your parents' location at this party.

Which may seem useless, but don't tell Serena that, because the only other class she took besides her six-week Defense Against The Dark Arts seminar with various ruined professors was Where's Waldo? 101. It was pass/fail. She found Waldo. Pass.

Wharton-grad VP Raina Thorpe approaches Chuck and tells him he looks dapper, and then she introduces him to her boss and father Russell, and Chuck is thunderstruck by all of this at once -- falling into lust with her now that he knows she's a Thorpe -- to the degree he somehow misses the criminal ugliness of this sentence: "I said I prefer the term secretary, which I do for those whom it actually refers to." (Like I said, usually only GG and Blair mangle simple language like that usually, so it really sticks out, but also: Well done, Wharton.) I mean, I fuck up grammar all the time on this beat, but usually it's to make you laugh, and I don't think this was a conscious thing or else they'd never let Blair do it, of all people.